(Dis)Gusting
by notagoodplace4gods
Summary: For a prompt in yhe yjanonkinkmeme in which wally's eating habits get the team in trouble during a mission so he tries to eat less, and everything goes downhill from there. (the fic is gen but I guess you can see either birdflash or spitfire if you want to)


A/N: I found this prompt in the yjanon kinkmeme and decided to fill it, but I can't link you to it because I lost it. I know, I suck, sorry. Anyway, I was originally going for birdflash, but then I had some spitfire feels, idek what happened. So this fic turned out gen, but I guess you can see either birdflash or spitfire, if you want to. I apologize in advance for being a horrible person because I make Wally want to starve himself in this, but the ending is pretty fluff so am I forgiven? Hope you guys like it!

xxx

His dad used to ask his boss' family to dinner at their home all the time, but he doesn't do it so frequently anymore. He says it's safer this way and that no one could watch Wally eat without asking question. They can't take the risk.

It doesn't happen so often, but when they get visitors, Wally eats alone in his room (and it's not a big deal, he's already used to eating alone at school). Sometimes he just asks his mother to lie and say he isn't at home and then spends the entire day in his room with bags and bags of chips because his wicked metabolism makes him hungry every two hours and it's easier than going up and down the stairs twelve times in the same day, so he just sits on his bedroom alone and stays there until everybody's gone or asleep. Only then he gets down and re-stores his bedroom with more food, careful to not disturb his parents.

It doesn't take long for the "no one could watch Wally eat without asking questions" to turn into a "no one should watch Wally eat because it's disgusting" in his head so Wally just goes straight to his room when he gets home and doesn't come out. His parents tried to talk him out of it, but the redhead was stubborn and determined to spare them and, eventually, they left him alone.

Everything gets better when they start the team and they get to have a secret headquarters because _how cool is that_and Wally now spends 60% of his time fighting crime and hanging out with his amazing new friends, which is awesome. The 40% left he spends at school and sleeping. He goes straight from bed to school, from school to Mt justice, from Mt justice to bed and repeat. His parents barely see him eat anymore (his parents barely see him anymore) and that's surprisingly nice.

But everyone in the team does and they start joking about it. Artemis makes a face every time he orders three pizzas for himself and dismisses him as 'ugh', Robin shakes his head and says it's easier to get over the sight of a dead body than of Wally's eating and they all laugh it off. Wally knows they mean nothing by it, he knows his team cares for him, that they understand and that they are only joking, but it somehow still hurts and that's because at the end of the day, they're laughing at him, just like all his classmates do.

He tries to get over it, he really does. He tries to join in the fun and it's surprisingly easy to make fun of himself; he used to be the class clown before he became the class freak, so he's got some moves. Six months go by and he becomes an expert at it, he smiles and shrugs and talks with his mouth full and pretends it doesn't hurt that much.

xxx

"Next time our covers get blown because you had to have your candy bar, we might not be so damn lucky!" Artemis snaps at with him when they come back from the big fat failure this mission was. She's angry because Wally fucked up bad. She's angry because she knows she fucked up too. She's angry because everything went wrong and now that she has the opportunity to pick another fight, she does because this one she's certain she'll win.

Wally pales, his heart racing. "I...I… I'm sorry, I was just…" He swallows, instead of saying that he was "hungry" because he's always hungry. He's hungry right now and this is definitely not the time. He looks away and fidgets with his hands, not knowing what else to say.

"It's okay." Kaldur stops Artemis. "Everything that could go wrong tonight did. It's not anyone's fault. We just have to work harder so this kind of thing won't happen again."

"Yeah, and it's not like it's your fault you have this fucked-up metabolism, right?" Robin tries to smile at him, but Wally isn't paying attention anymore, he's thinking about what Kaldur said; he just has to work harder so it won't happen again. It can't happen again.

Artemis feels a bit ashamed of her outburst. She knows he needs a lot of energy to be able to run like that, she knows it's probably a side-effect from having this amazing power, but, when she gathers enough courage to tell him that, Wally's walking away. She sighs and decides she'll just apologize tomorrow.

She postpones it again because there was no mission and she spent the day with her mom. The day after that, Wally misses training because of finals and she never gets around to doing it. She forgets.

Wally doesn't. He thinks about it every day, he thinks about how he ruined the entire mission for unwrapping a candy bar at the wrong place and revealing their location, he thinks about how he could have so easily caused his friends' deaths and put the world in danger. He thinks that it can't happen again. It has to stop and he can make it stop if he just could maybe stop eating so damn much all the time.

And he does stop, he convinces himself he doesn't really need to eat, that he's fine, that he had a great lunch and that it is enough to keep him going, that he can wait until it's dinner time like normal people do. When dinner comes, he can't help it. He's so hungry that he eats twice what he normally does, which is probably twice what normal people do.

He hates that he has failed once again and he hates himself for being so pathetic that he cries himself to sleep. He hates that he's feeling so weak the next day he has to make something up about finals for missing training on Mt justice.

'We just have to work harder' He remembers Kaldur. He remembers Arthemis' and Superboy's anger, he remembers M'Gann's bleeding arm and her weak 'it's nothing to worry about', he remembers Dick's tired sigh and the way his friend tried to comfort him, anyway. He can't forget any of those, he won't.

Harder. He just needs to work harder.

It's been three hours since he last ate two of M'Gann's cookies as breakfast when they're called on a mission. It's basically surveillance, which means the justice league is still disappointed in them for their previous failure.

"Are you okay?" Robin asks when they board the ship. "You look like shit."

"You do look a little pale." M'gann's in his side in a minute, but Wally just shrugs and looks away. He finds Artemis watching him with worry. He looks down at his hands.

"Yeah, I'm just tired. Finals suck, huh?"

Robin looks at him. The boy wonder knows him, he knows Wally scored perfectly on all his subjects at school. He may have let him off the hook for lying about it once, but now he seems unsure of how to proceed. 'I thought you believed in us," his stare is accusing.

But he does, he really does. Wally believes in all of them, he just doesn't believe in himself, that's the problem.

The surveillance takes much longer than he thought it would because nothing happens. The Sportmaster's guy just stands there as if he's mocking them, but he can't be really mocking them because he couldn't have known they would be there, could he?

They're all getting tired and annoyed because they're superheroes, not babysitters. Even Kaldur proves he has had enough when he sends Superboy and Robin to investigate the abandoned warehouse, changing the plan.

"Hey." Artemis calls. "Kid Mouth."

Wally opens his eyes and that's weird because he doesn't even remember closing them.

"Don't you fall asleep on me during a mission, wall-man. That's like basic training, superhero-ing 101."

"Sorry." He says.

Artemis closes her arms, a bit taken aback by the conformable reply, and sighs. "Look, Wally, I just... Do you want a chocolate?" She takes two out of the pocket in her quiver and offers him one. "That's the longest I've seen you go without eating something and it's been, like, four hours."

It's been seven hours, actually, but Wally doesn't correct her.

"I'm okay." He tries to smile. "I've had a big breakfast."

"Wally." She bites on her lower lip. "Look, I..." She never gets to finish her sentence because something explodes and suddenly Kaldur is mentally shouting in their heads.

"Kid, I need you to find the source of the explosion, Artemis, with me, we have company."

Kid Flash runs.

He arrives just in time to see a helicopter taking off with Sportmaster waving him goodbye.

"Kid Flash, did you find him?" Robin asks via the connection.

"I'm in pursuit." Wally answers, breathing heavily.

"We're done here." Superboy says. "His minions came out of nowhere, but they were easily defeated, this feels like a distraction."

"Send me a mental image of where he is and we can help you." M'Gann pleads.

"I just heard a helicopter, did he escape?" Artemis asks.

"I'm in pursuit." Wally keeps running.

"Kid." Kaldur sounds worried. "Wally, it's over, let's regroup, we need to plan our next move and take these criminals to Belle Reve."

Wally doesn't answer, he just keeps running. He runs until he can't anymore.

"Kid Idiot! He can't go after Sportmaster alone! That's a disaster, heavy on the 'dis'." Robin clenches and unclenches his fists, he hates being played and the sensation of hopelessness that follows isn't very pleasant either.

"I'll go after him." Superboy volunteers.

"No." Kaldur stops him. "We need to stay together, this whole thing smells like a trap."

"Well, we can't just leave him to do as he pleases, he's..." Artemis groans, in frustration. "I don't think he's well enough to fight if it comes to that."

"Expand on that." Kaldur raises an eyebrow at her.

"He didn't eat anything the whole time we were waiting. It's been four hours."

"And the finals excuse he came up yesterday was total shit." Robin adds. "Kid's the biggest nerd ever, he's got straights As in everything."

"It's been more than four hours." Superboy says. "He was with us on Mt. Justice. Did you any of you see him eat?"

"He ate my cookies for breakfast." M'Gann tells them and they all pause. That was early morning. "I'll try to contact him again." She closes her eyes and concentrates.

The wait is tense and uncomfortable.

M'Gann gasps and falls to her knees. Superboy's by her side in a second.

"I... I lost him, I don't know how, but, there's... There's nothing."

"Get to the ship." Kaldur wastes no time and starts running. "Our mission's just changed and we're not leaving without Kid Flash."

M'Gann makes the ship visible again and takes off as soon as they board. Robin immediately starts typing on his computer and a cyber map unfolds before him. "The explosion was from here so he can't be far. Here are the coordinates." Miss Martian nods and focuses.

"Uh." Artemis looks down. "When you said you lost him, did you mean..." She can't bring herself to say it, she just can't.

"It means the idiot passed out because he starved himself!" Robin's the one who answers, but he doesn't raise his head to look at them.

"I'll contact Tornado." Kaldur touches his shoulder. "He'll get a medic team on Mt Justice waiting for us to bring Kid in."

"I think I found him." Superboy exclaims at the same time Red Tornado's calls from the radio "Aqualad, what's the situation?"

"Go get him!" Kaldur tells them and turns to talk to the league member.

Everybody's ready to jump out of the ship.

"I'll get him." Superboy stops them. "Keep the ship flying and ready." He nods at M'Gann's direction, who just nods back and tries not to cry.

It takes Superboy exactly twenty three seconds to come back, (they're all counting), carrying an unconscious Wally in his arms.

"He's alive, but unresponsive." He says and lays him down at a bed M'Gann just materialized on the ship.

"Have you tried hitting him in the face?" Robin asks and runs over, taking his friend's hand in his. "Really hard?"

"I don't think that will help." Superboy sounds confused for a minute.

"I'm with him on this, boy wonder." Artemis looks at Wally and wonders if she could take his free hand. "But maybe after he wakes up? We can alternate punches." She doesn't.

"It's a plan." Robin says, but, despite the light words, his voice sounds terribly weak.

xxx

"Why isn't he waking up?" Artemis asks the question in everybody's mind. "It's been over a day and they haven't told us anything!"

"Batman said he was going to be okay, right?" M'Gann holds herself, overwhelmed with worry.

"They'll tell us when he does." Kaldur tries to ease her worries. "He's our teammate and our friend."

"Then we should be with him, not them." Superboy says, crossing his arms.

"The Flash might disagree with you, supes. I doubt he'll leave Wally's side soon." Robin sighs. "But they shouldn't keep us in the dark like that. Maybe I can hack his medical files or something." He starts to work, typing away, because there's finally something he can do.

"I don't care about stupid medical files!" Artemis stops herself there, knowing she's about to lose it again, and she remembers very cleared what happened the last time she said something she didn't mean. "Sorry. He just needs to wake up so I can punch him and... and... apologize."

"You have nothing to apologize for." Kaldur starts, but she cuts him off.

"But I do. I blamed him for our last failure, I yelled at him for eating during the mission and now he suddenly decides to starve himself? That's... That's on me."

Robin's the first to break the silence that followed her confession.

"I think there's more to it." He types something else on the computer and a video plays out. It's Wally, eating alone in his room. Robin fast-forwards it so a whole day goes by and the redhead doesn't leave the room. "I've been watching it on mute since we arrived because I don't think Wally would just stop eating out of nowhere, there must be a reason behind it. The footage's from last week but I don't doubt it's became a habit for him."

"He's ashamed of how much he eats." Superboy suddenly feels very self conscious of all the jokes they did on Wally's behalf.

"Hello, Megan!" M'Gann's voice cracks and she buries her face on her hands. "It was so obvious, but we still laughed at him."

"Did you bug his room?" Kaldur chooses to focus on an entire different matter.

"I...uh." Robin grins, but it's sad. "That's kind of how we show affection in Gotham."

"I know your intentions are good and you helped us understand what was happening to him, but when Wally wakes, he won't need the world's best detective by his side, he's going to need his best friend. Can you do that for him?" Kaldur closes the video.

Robin is silent for a moment, but when he looks up, he sounds determined.

"Yeah, I think I can."

"Good." Kaldur smiles at him. "But don't think that when this is over we're not talking about you other hidden cameras."

Robin's scoff is interrupted by Batman's "He's awake."

Soon enough they're all around Wally's bed and Batman closes the door behind him, taking the Flash and the other league members with him.

"Hey, guys." Wally greets them with a yellow smile. He's tired and ashamed, but the sooner he apologizes, the sooner it ends and everything can go back to normal. "I'm sorry I worried you, I just..."

"Oh, Wally!" M'Gann hugs him tight. "I'm so glad you're okay."

"I'm sorry." He says and hugs her back.

"What are you sorry for?" Superboy asks. "For worrying us, for starving yourself or for the way you eat?"

"SB." Robin's voice is low and dangerous.

"For everything." Wally feels his lips trembling and forces himself to stop. "I just... It was stupid of me to go without eating for so long when I need the energy, uncle Barry already yelled at me, but I just... I know it's not something pleasant to watch, so I'll try not to do it in front of you guys anymore, or something, it's no big deal."

"I'm sorry." Artemis says, trying her best to blink back tears. She's not going to cry in front of Kid Idiot, she won't. "For blaming last mission on you. No, you listen to me, I'm not done." She doesn't let him interrupt her. "It wasn't your fault, we all made mistakes and I was angry. I was angry at myself, mostly, and I took it out on you." She takes a deep breath and punches him on the shoulder. "I'm also sorry about that."

Wally gapes at her. "Uh, okay."

"We're all friends, Wally." Kaldur starts. "But we haven't been good friends to you lately. We shouldn't have made fun of you for eating the way you do and we should have noticed how badly we were hurting you. If there's any blame to give, it's ours."

"It's not." Wally tries, again. "Look, I know my eating habits are disgusting and..."

"They're not." Robin shushes him. "They're not disgusting! In fact, I think they're very much 'gusting.' You eat with so much 'gust,' you make everything seem delicious and it makes me wish I could eat half the stuff you do."

"I love when you eat my cookies and my cakes." M'Gann nods. "Even though they end up burned and uneatable, most of the time."

"I really love your cooking." Wally replies immediately and she beams with happiness, irradiating and flooding everyone's mind with warmth.

"We don't care about what you eat. We care about you." Superboy says, touching him on the shoulder. "Don't do it again."

"Yeah, or we'll get Roy to talk some sense into you." Robin grins at him.

Wally looks at his friends, he looks at these incredible people who, for some unknown reason, love him dearly, who love him enough to put up with his excessive sick eating, and he tears up. "Shit." He lifts his hand up to his eyes, to dry them, but Robin stops him.

"Do you wanna talk about it, KF?"

"I..." Wally seems lost for a moment. "I don't think there's any need, right? The league'll get me talking to Black Canary and you probably already have everything figured out, being the world's best detective's little bird, right, Rob?"

Robin shares a brief look with Kaldur, but then takes his best friend's hand and squeezes. "Yeah, but do you wanna talk to me about it, anyway?"

Wally tastes his own salty tears, but he doesn't feel ashamed, he feels relieved and safe and happy. "Maybe... Maybe later?"

"Hello, Megan!" M'Gann exclaims. "He doesn't need to talk right away, but he does need a group hug asap." He pulls Superboy and Kaldur to him with both of her hands and Robin laughs his wicked laugh, but eventually joins them.

Wally extends his hand to Artemis. And, this time, she takes it.


End file.
